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Town Center Plan
January 2007
Chapter 1: Existing Conditions
lack of pedestrian facilities such as sidewalks
and safe road and railroad crossings makes
pedestrian safety and access issues of concern
throughout much of the project area.
The southern portion of the Town Center
includes significant existing and potential
parkland, with Wake County’s Cedar Fork
District Park and a natural area owned by
the Town of Morrisville, as well as additional
natural lands and several historic sites that
were significant in the skirmish that was
fought in Morrisville at the end of the Civil War
(See Map 2). These areas provide emeralds
on a necklace of green space that includes
Lake Crabtree and Umstead State Park to
the east and the Morrisville Community
Park, several Town of Cary parks, and the
American Tobacco Trail to the west. With the
Indian Creek Greenway under development
heading north, the Town Center lies at a future
greenway crossroads, both at a community
scale and for the Triangle region as a whole.
The Town Center is also a hub of civic
activity, with a number of Town facilities, the
Chamber of Commerce, and the First Baptist
Church all located within close proximity to
one another (see Map 2). In addition to
Town Hall, the project area also is home to
the Police Station, Fire Station #1, the Public
Works yard, and other existing and planned
town offices, as well as the Hindu Temple on
Aviation Parkway. Together, these facilities
provide a strong civic orientation to the Town
Center, and help to bring many residents into
this area on a regular basis.
Together, these natural and built features
provide cornerstones that can help make the
project area a major center of community
that provides a diversity of services and
amenities to Morrisville residents and visitors
alike.
Market Conditions
The design team retained by the Town
included a professional real estate andmarket
economist with considerable experience
assessing the market potential of Main
Street-style projects. Below is a summary of
this review of existing market conditions in
the Town Center area, and the opportunities
for appropriate new development in the near
future. The full report is included in Appendix
4. The following are general findings from
a market reconnaissance and inventory of
existing uses within the Town Center study
area.
Town Center:
The town center currently
has residential and civic functions, but only
a few business uses. As such, the area is
not definable as a “business district” in
the traditional sense of a commercial town
center. The town center also lacks identity
and presence because of the lack of building
massing and any sense of scale. Key uses
include residential, retail & service, office,
and civic. Altogether, the Town Center
currently includes about 900 homes that are
built or under construction. In addition, it
includes about 85,000 square feet of civic
and institutional space, 150,000 square feet
of retail and office space, and about 11,000
square feet of warehouse and industrial
space.
Peripheral Areas:
Just outside of the
A deer grazes in a meadow south of Morrisville-Carpen-
ter Road, evoking Morrisville’s rural past even as the
community sprouts new subdivisions and commercial
developments. (Photo: S. Sugg, Town of Morrisville)